Subscribe to this blog

Follow by Email

Spiritual Giants

Adam Grant is a relatively young scholar.He teaches at the Wharton School at the
University of Pennsylvania.He focuses
on psychology and management.Anyone in
the business world knows that Wharton is as famous as Harvard when it comes to
business schools.So professionally he
is at the top of ladder.However, the
great thing about him is he has the ability to do interesting research and
write about it in engaging ways for the non-expert.Whenever he writes something, I want to read
it.

Recently, he had an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times.It had in intriguing title: “How to Raise a
Creative Child. Step One: Back Off.”Naturally, I jumped right into the reading of the thing.The focus was on the highly gifted
child.They are the ones off the chart
smart or talented.They are
prodigies---so far ahead of their peers it is ridiculous.But where does it end?

Grant puts it pretty simply.“Child prodigies rarely become adult geniuses who change the
world.”Instead of fame, they typically
fizzle.Grant thinks he has some reasons
that explain this.I like the way Grant
describes their pilgrimage to normalcy.He
says, “What holds them back is that they don’t learn to be original.”Instead of being a creative kid who turns into
an adult genius who might make the world different, the kid is not inventive or
innovative.

Grant suggests the reason for this.He claims “They strive to earn the approval
of their parents and the admiration of their teachers.”The ways in which they are fabulously gifted
can be showy, but ultimately nothing is produced.Again, Grant puts it clearly.“But as they perform in Carnegie Hall and
become chess champions, something unexpected happens: Practice makes perfect,
but it doesn’t make new.”

They may well become leaders in their field.But they are not the ones who figure out how
to do things in creative, new ways.Ironically, Grant maintains, “Research suggests the most creative
children are the least likely to become the teacher’s pet, and in response, may
learn to keep their original ideas to themselves.”Grant then moves to try to explain why the
really gifted child may never be creative and the not-so-obvious creative kid
becomes the big innovator or one who transforms the world in some fashion.

Grant turns to the parents for part of the explanation.Surprisingly, a key difference was the number
of rules parents had for their kids.Generally speaking, highly creative children had far fewer rules from
parents.Grant concludes, “Creativity
may be hard to nurture, but it’s easy to thwart.”It was simple: “By limiting rules, parents
encouraged their children to think for themselves.”

As I have experience in the field on innovation, I find
Grant’s perspective makes sense.I can
even point to my own experience.While I
obviously never would have fit into the gifted child category, I am sure I
spent way too much time and effort pleasing both my parents and teachers.I became good, but not great.I thwarted myself.I am not down about that because I also have
learned in small ways, at least, to become more innovative.

There is much more to say on this topic, but I want to
switch to the spiritual side of the topic.While many may not see any spiritual teaching from this, I immediately
made some connections.No one doubts
that there have been some spiritual giants throughout history and, even, in our
own time.Most adults today think of
Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Tutu and others from the 20th century.

I am confident every one of them would not have said they
were spiritually gifted young children.Seldom would a young one aspire to be a saint.In fact, I am not even sure what the career
path to being a saint would look like.But I also think there are some hints to what normally happens.

A spiritual giant is one who comes to know deep in her or
his heart a God who becomes so real to them that they are transformed from an
ordinary spiritual person into an extraordinary person.The normally have enough commitment and
discipline to see their way into new ways radicalizing the world for God’s
sake.Often they work miracles from the
humility of their station in life.Seldom
do they have the power of the politician or prince.

Their work is divinity, not domination.It is not unusual for them to be misfits in
society and, even, in the church.They
don’t do rules very well.Rather they
have become their own person---often their own person is as a transformed person
of God.Indeed through them and their
action, God is present in the world and, frequently proclaiming a new kind of
world that is not simply a better version of what exists.

It would be easy to acknowledge this, applaud this like we
do the athletic prodigy, and then go home.But in the spiritual world each and every one of us ultimately is being
called into spiritual greatness.To
settle for less is to say no to part or, even, all of God’s call on our
lives.Too many of us are the parent of
our inner child—thwarting any kind of spiritual genius each of us possesses.

Get link

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Google+

Email

Other Apps

Popular posts from this blog

Recently I had the opportunity to speak to a gathering of folks. The invitation was to talk about how people get into spiritual living. While that was an interesting topic to address, I soon realized how diverse and complex the answer really is. I doubt there is a recipe or game plan that you can offer folks and everyone immediately proceeds to get into spiritual living. I am sure people do it in different ways. Perhaps it is that the same person does it differently over a period of years.

I will offer three ways people get into spiritual living. Over a period of time, I am confident people do all three. I certainly have practiced all three. I would like to talk about entrances, thresholds and openings. These are not steps---to be taken one after the other. They are not stages. They are simply different ways we get into the spiritual.

The first option is by way of entrance. When I think about entrance, I first think about it in a literal fashion. Probably the most typic…

We live in it at all times. It surrounds us, penetrates us and yet
is probably separate from us. It is independent and dependent at the
same time. It is mysterious and, yet, completely transparent and
knowable. It’s reality.

Of course, there are different
philosophical and theological perspectives on just what reality is. I
am sure there must be scientific versions, as well. Psychologists might
tell is reality is a matter of perspective. I suppose some extremists
are confident there is no such thing as reality. Maybe I am in
illusion, but it seems to me pretty clear there is such a thing a
reality. The good news is, I do not intend to explore its philosophical
and scientific roots. I am going to take reality for granted. For me,
it is. Let’s think about the reality of reality.

What
prompted these beginning thoughts was a random sentence in an article I
was reading. The article was not very good, but it did have a great
sentence from one of my favorite author…

I am sure I learned very young that community was important. I just didn’t have the language for it. When I was a pre-school kid, I recall my dad going into the little town close to our farm. A number of guys (I don’t remember any women) gathered each morning in the local drugstore to have coffee and discuss the hot topics of the night before and day to come. I was thrilled to be included, but I don’t recall talking. But I was present.

I am sure no one called that gathering a “community.” But that is exactly what it was. It was not a religious community, although I am sure most of the guys went to church somewhere in the little town. It was not political, although politics surely were central to the discussion. It was a “community community,” if that makes any sense. Sports, local news, farm economy and local business news were the fabric of the community.

I have been part of communities most of my adult life. It is fair to say they are important to me. It seems I need the…